Croyland chronicles 8.docx

9/20/13 (cont.)
The king's purpose and intention of contracting a marriage with his niece Elizabeth being
mentioned to some who were opposed thereto, the king was obliged, having called a council
together, to excuse himself with many words and to assert that such a thing had never once
entered his mind. There were some persons, however, present at that same council, who very
well knew the contrary. Those in especial who were unwilling that this marriage should take
place, and to whose opinions the king hardly ever dared offer any opposition, were Sir Richard
Ratclyffe and William Catesby, Esquire of his body. For by these persons the king was told to his
face that if he did not abandon his intended purpose, and that, too, before the mayor and
commons of the city of London, oppostion would not be offered to him merely by the warnings of
the voice; for all the people of the north, in whom he placed the greatest reliance, would rise in
rebellion against him, and impute to him the death of the queen, the daughter and one of the
heirs of the earl of Warwick, through whom he had first gained his present high p